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Sound Design
Introduction Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software development. Sound design most commonly involves the manipulation of previously composed or recorded audio, such as music and sound effects. In some instances it may also involve the composition or manipulation of audio to create a desired effect or mood. A sound designer is one who practices the art of sound design. History The use of sound to evoke emotion, reflect mood and underscore actions in plays and dances began in prehistoric times. At its earliest, it was used in religious practices for healing or just for fun. In ancient Japan, theatrical events called kagura were performed in Shinto shrines with music and dance.1 Plays were performed in medieval times in a form of theatre called Commedia dell'arte, which used music and sound effects to enhance performances. The use of music and sound in the Elizabethan Theatre followed, in which music and sound effects were produced off stage using devices such as bells, whistles, and horns. Cues would be written in the script for music and sound effects to be played at the appropriate time.2 Italian composer Luigi Russolo built mechanical sound-making devices, called intonarumori, for futurist theatrical and music performances starting around 1913. These devices were meant to simulate natural and man-made sounds, such as trains and bombs. Russolo's treatise, The Art of Noises, is one of the earliest written documents on the use of abstract noise in the theatre. After his death, his intonarumori were used in more conventional theatre performances to create realistic sound effects. Timeline of Sound in Film *1902 -- 1926: The era of the silent film while inventors including Edison sought to link sound mechanically with moving film images. *1904 -- Frenchman Eugene Lauste records sound onto a piece of photographic film *1907 -- 1913 various fim and sound inventions included the Vivaphone, Synchroscope, the Chronophone, the Cameraphone and the Cinephone. Edison produced the Kinetophone in 1913 -- a "Rube Goldberg" device of belts and pulleys and received boos for his efforts at Keith's Union Square theatre in New York City. *19teens -- Western Electric develops along with Lee DeForest (1906 Audion) a method or recording and reproducing sound electronically on disc. Western Electric Buought the rights to the use of the Audio for amplifying the phonographic sound. *1921 -- DeForest improves the method of recording sound on film and patents a new invention he calls the phonofilm. *September 1925 -- Warner Bros. contracts with the AT&T method of sound with film and releases its first sound with film pictures in 1926 using a system dubbed theVitaphone. Don Juan, released in 1926 was the first film to inlcude music on an amplified sound- track. *October 1927 -- The Jazz Singer featuring Al Jolson is released by Warner Bros. Not an immediate hit in New York, but it gained long-lasting fame when it moved into America's heartland. It was rebooked in 1928 in New York and grossed $100,000 a week. *May 1927 -- Fox Film Corporation works with a new AT&T development -- sound on film. Fox uses this system to produce newsreels which would play prior to feature films at theatres.The first big publicity coups was the flight of Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic. Also memorable was the capturing of the explosion of the Hindenburg. These newsreel shorts became known as the Movietone News. *May 1928 -- the major film companies (Paramount, Loews/MGM, First National and United Artists) sign with AT&T to produce pictures with sound on film despite the introduction of a competing format developed by RCA. *End of 1920s -- only a few theatres in America's largest cities continued to maintain a house orchestra and organist. *September 1928 -- Warner Bros. releases The Singing Fool -- again starring Al Jolson. Tickets for the first night were $11.00. "Sonny Boy" and "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" from the film became the first million selling record of the "talkie" era. The Singing Fool cost $200,000 to produce but drew an unprecedented $5,000,000. Recorded sound Possibly the first use of recorded sound in the theatre was a phonograph playing a baby’s cry in a London theatre in 1890.3 Sixteen years later, Herbert Beerbohm Tree used recordings in his London production of Stephen Phillips’ tragedy NERO. The event is marked in the Theatre Magazine (1906) with two photographs; one showing a musician blowing a bugle into a large horn attached to a disc recorder, the other with an actor recording the agonizing shrieks and groans of the tortured martyrs. The article states: “these sounds are all realistically reproduced by the gramophone”. As cited by Bertolt Brecht, there was a play about Rasputin written in (1927) by Alexej Tolstoi and directed by Erwin Piscator that included a recording of Lenin's voice. Whilst the term "sound designer" was not is use at this time, a number of stage managers specialised as "effects men", creating and performing offstage sound effects using a mix of vocal mimicry, mechanical and electrical contraptions and gramophone records. A great deal of care and attention was paid to the construction and performance of these effects, both naturallistic and abstract.4 Over the course of the twentieth century the use of recorded sound effects began to take over from live sound effects, though often it was the stage manager's duty to find the sound effects and an electrician played the recordings during performances. But even though the sound designer has basically assumed these roles, time and technology have not ruled out non-sound designers having a hand in sound production. For instance, since today's audiences are savvier and can readily distinguish between live and recorded sounds, live backstage sound effects are still used (e.g. gun shots) by the stage manager (or assistant stage manager) for premium "aural illusion". Between 1980 and 1988, Charlie Richmond, USITT's first Sound Design Commissioner, oversaw efforts of their Sound Design Commission to define the duties, responsibilities, standards and procedures which might normally be expected of a theatre sound designer in North America. This subject is still regularly discussed by that group, but during that time, substantial conclusions were drawn and he wrote a document which, although now somewhat dated, provides a succinct record of what was expected at that time. It was subsequently provided to both the ADC and David Goodman at the Florida USA local when they were both planning to represent sound designers in the 1990s. Digital technology MIDI and digital technology helped to drive the rapid evolution of sound design during the 1980s and 1990s. Features of computerized theatre sound design systems were recognized as being essential for live show control systems at Walt Disney World and, as a result, Disney utilized systems of that type to control many facilities at their Disney-MGM Studios theme park, which opened in 1989. These features were incorporated into the MIDI Show Control (MSC) specification, an open communications protocol used to interact with diverse devices. The first show to fully utilize the MSC specification was the Magic Kingdom Parade at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in September, 1991. Also, the World Wide Web has greatly enhanced the ability of sound designers to acquire source material quickly, easily and cheaply. Nowadays, a designer can preview and download crisper, more "believable" sounds as opposed to toiling through time- and budget-draining "shot-in-the-dark" searches through record stores, libraries and "the grapevine" for (often) inferior recordings. In addition, software innovation has enabled sound designers to take more of a DIY (or "do-it-yourself") approach. From the comfort of their home and at any hour, they can simply use a computer, speakers and headphones rather than renting (or buying) costly equipment or studio space and time for editing and mixing. This provides for faster creation and negotiation with the director. Sound Design in Film Overview In motion picture production, a Sound Designer is a member of a film crew responsible for some original aspect of the film's audio. In the American film industry, the title of Sound Designer is not controlled by any industry organization, unlike titles such as Director or Screenwriter. The terms sound design and Sound Designer were introduced to the film world in 1972. The title of Sound Designer was first granted to Walter Murch by Francis Ford Coppola in recognition for Murch's extraordinary contributions to the film Apocalypse Now. The original meaning of the title Sound Designer, as established by Coppola and Murch, was "an individual ultimately responsible for all aspects of a film's audio track, from the dialogue and sound effects recording to the re-recording (mix) of the final track". The position of Sound Designer emerged in a manner similar to that of Production Designer, which was created in the 1930s when William Cameron Menzies made revolutionary contributions to the craft of art direction in the making of Gone with the Wind. The sound designer is a principal member of the production staff, with creative authority equal to that of the film editor and director of photography. Several factors led to the promotion of sound design to this level: Cinema sound systems became capable of high-fidelity reproduction, particularly after the adoption of Dolby Stereo. These systems were originally devised as gimmicks to increase theater attendance, but their widespread implementation created a content vacuum that had to be filled by competent professionals. Before stereo soundtracks, film sound was of such low fidelity that only the dialogue and occasional sound effects were practical. The greater dynamic range of the new systems, coupled with the ability to produce sounds at the sides or behind the audience, required more creativity. Directors wanted to realize the new potentials of the medium. A new generation of filmmakers, the so-called "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls"—Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and others—were aware of the creative potential of sound and wanted to use it. Filmmakers were inspired by the popular music of the era. Concept albums of groups such as Pink Floyd and The Beatles suggested new modes of storytelling and creative techniques that could be adapted to motion pictures. New filmmakers made their early films outside the Hollywood establishment, away from the influence of film labor unions and the then rapidly-dissipating studio system. The role of sound designer can be compared with the role of supervising sound editor; many sound designers use both titles interchangeably. The role of supervising sound editor, or sound supervisor, developed in parallel with the role of sound designer. The demand for more sophisticated soundtracks was felt both inside and outside Hollywood, and the supervising sound editor became the head of the large sound department, with a staff of dozens of sound editors, that was required to realize a complete sound job with a fast turnaround. It is far from universal, but the role of sound supervisor descends from the original role of the sound editor, that of a technician required to complete a film, but having little creative authority. Sound designers, on the other hand, are expected to be creative, and their role is a generalization of the other creative department heads. Professional organizations The Association of Sound Designers is a trade association representing theatre sound designers in the UK. United Scenic Artists (USA) Local USA829, which is integrated within IATSE, represents theatrical sound designers in the United States. Theatrical Sound Designers in English Canada are represented by the Associated Designers of Canada (ADC), and in Québec by l'Association des professionnels des arts du Québec (APASQ). Music In contemporary music, especially rock music, ambient music, progressive rock, and similar genres, the record producer and recording engineer play important roles in the creation of the overall sound (or soundscape) of a recording, and less often, of a live performance. The record producer is chiefly responsible for extracting the best performance possible from the musicians and for making both musical and technical decisions about the instrumental timbres, arrangements, etc. On certain ambitious and complex recording projects, artists and producers have relied on sonic consultants, often credited as "sound designer", to help them to create specific auditory effects, landscapes, or to ensure an overall consistency and quality of some of the (usually unconventional) sonic elements. In such arrangements, the producer may put almost all of his or her attention on managing the recording session and working closely with the musicians on their performances and interpretations of the material; the recording engineer may dedicate all of his or her time to capturing these performances on tape (or hard disk); the sound designer may then help to create the overall sound, the integration of recording technology with musical instrument technology, the presentation that is the phonographic equivalent of decisions in movie-making about what type of lens to use on the camera, whether or not to use soft focus, and what kind of lighting to use on a scene. In applied research in electrostatics and computer programming for contemporary music or electronic music, the Sound Designer is a specialist who is usually there to help the composer to do the electroacoustic portion of the composition. Often, the composer comes with an idea (concept + score) and the Sound Designer assists the composer with new technology and unique equipment. Examples include sound synthesis, interaction between acoustic instruments and computers, realization of a computer program in many different languages (often Max-MSP/Jitter), gesture capture with sensors or cameras, video treatment and interaction between video and sound. Historically, the Sound Designer was often called the "Musical Assistant". Some of the many examples of research centers working with Sound Designers include Forum Neues Musiktheater of Stuttgart, IRCAM in Paris or synArt in Antibes.